Ray Isle's Greatest Wine Tips (and Some Shenanigans, Too)

Potato chips can teach you all about pairing

"See, here’s the thing. Pairing wine and food is simple at its core because wine just flat out goes well with food. There are actually very few wine pairings that are truly awful, though admittedly there are some exceptions: mackerel and Cabernet, which tastes like licking a roll of pennies; artichokes, which contain cynarin and can make wine taste hideous; brut Champagne and wedding cake, because the sweetness of the cake makes the wine come off screamingly acidic, but then who cares because everyone’s drunk at that point anyway.

But if you are interested in pairing wine and food, potato chips are a great learning tool. That’s because they’re an ideal way of isolating simple taste characteristics: saltiness, tartness, sweetness, spice/heat, and so on." — Ray Isle

Free yourself, and your joy will follow

"Ray is the person who freed me to pair pretty much ANYTHING. He mentioned a version of this in the piece [about pairing wine and potato chips]. I think he called it the 10% rule. 10% of pairings are mind-bendingly amazing. 80% are solid. And only 10% are truly egregious. After I understood that, I felt a lot more confident! One thing I love about Ray is that he isn’t dogmatic or a snob. He’s an enthusiast. He can drop wine descriptors with the best of them and can also get people excited IN REAL ENGLISH. That’s a gift. (He also weirdly loves the word 'elide.')" — Dana Cowin 

"So many great travel stories and tasting guides," she says, but Dana cites Ray's story on Patagonian Pinot as "unforgettable."

Hooray for Chardonnay

"No other grape divides the wine world quite like Chardonnay. Many have loved it for years while others refuse to touch the stuff. Given its ability to polarize a crowd, Chardonnay was lucky to have Ray Isle as its spokesperson in the Spring of 2022. 'As the years have gone by, it's become clear to me that Chardonnay is, more than any other grape, a chameleon,' Isle writes. In the piece he explores Chardonnay's ability to shape shift from linear, zippy wine that is aged in stainless steel all the way to rich, buttery with plenty of vanilla and coconut notes from new oak. In typical Ray Isle fashion he goes undercover at tasting rooms in California to talk Chardonnay. And to no surprise, tasting room-goers are as opinionated about Chardonnay as they come. He's witty, smart, and knows a hell of a lot about Chardonnay." — Lucy Simon, assistant editor 

How to shop smarter

Overwhelmed. Baffled. Bewildered. That’s how most people feel when shopping for wine. Ray went undercover as a wine salesman and uncorked seven solutions, from choosing the right salesperson to deploying your phone judiciously. Executive editor Karen Shimizu cites this as one of her favorites of Ray's oeuvre.

Just Barolo with it

"To paraphrase the first rule of Fight Club, the first rule of Piedmont is you can never truly know Piedmont unless you are Piedmontese — and I like that in a destination." And it's writing like this that makes this exploration of the region one of editor-in-chief Hunter Lewis' most favorite Ray Isle escapades.

May I help you with that wine list?

In Ray went undercover as a sommelier at three different restaurants around the country in order to better understand the ways that customers are confounded by wine lists. He emerged with seven suggestions to make the process less daunting — and a James Beard Award nomination.

Root yourself in history

In 2014, Ray was nominated for that same accolade for his profile of the people trying to protect some of California's oldest vines from destruction. "For [Tegan Passalacqua], vineyards like Salvador aren't merely old but historic; their value extends far beyond the per-ton cost of their grapes. 'They remind me that what we do is agriculture,' he says, 'instead of agri-business.'

That idea — that vineyards like Salvador have cultural value and are, in a way, living links to California's past — is one reason why Passalacqua and several like-minded winemaker and vineyardist friends founded the nonprofit Historic Vineyard Society in 2011. The society has catalogued more than 200 vineyards throughout the state, any number of which are at risk of disappearing. Already, many important old vineyards are gone. In some cases, new owners ripped out the vines and replanted to more popular varieties."

Of punk rock and Pinot

"But having spent my youth near enough mosh pits, I'd say there's very little that any Chenin Blanc anywhere in the world has in common with being elbowed in the face by some sweaty aggro skinhead. The connotations are the point: 'Punk' suggests outsider, break-the-rules, fight-the-power, while 'violence' conjures intensity, power, surprise.

In restaurants right now, for a wine to be truly cool — and don't think there aren't cool and uncool wines — it needs to have at least a whisper of the transgressive. Call it punk, indie, alternative — whichever you want — but the music analogy is apt." — Ray Isle

"This story gets to the core of why I adore Ray Isle. He's a rebel for joy and a champion of weird and truly one of the most constantly compelling, informative, and smile-inducing writers I know." — Kat Kinsman, executive features editor

How to prioritize pleasure

"When Álvaro Palacios isn't making wine in Rioja, the Priorat or Bierzo, or jetting off to conferences in Portugal or tastings in Hong Kong, or touching down for distributor meetings in one of the 90 countries that sells his wines, when he isn't doing any of that — which is basically never — what he likes to do is ride his horse, Califa, in the hills above the Riojan town of Alfaro, where he was born.

Actually, riding his horse is one of two things that Palacios likes to do when he isn't working. The other is to hang out with his childhood friends, eating great food and (as you might imagine) drinking wine. So a Saturday when he gets to do both is a rare pleasure. 'My friends ask me, When are you coming back to Alfaro? ' he says, unbuckling Califa's girth and taking off the heavy saddle. The horse is lathered with sweat; the hills are steep, the sun is high and they've been riding for three hours now. 'I have to tell them, Not this week, not the next, not the one after… But this is what I really love — being here, drinking wine with the people I know.' — Ray Isle

The 40 wines that changed the way we drink

"What was the first wine? There's no way to know, though the oldest evidence of winemaking dates back 8,000 years, to Stone Age villages in the mountains south of Tbilisi, Georgia. But whoever made that first wine, man or woman, priest or peasant, we owe them a big debt. Some wines are good, some are bad, and some — a very few, like that first one — are significant. Maybe they shatter preconceptions about the potential of a grape or region; maybe they shock us with a new flavor or set of tastes; maybe they even leave us taken aback by the fact that they're packaged in cans. Here are 40 that made a difference." — Ray Isle

An expert's guide to pairing sourdough and wine

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